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Media obsession with Bollywood

Bollywood-The Indian media chants this word as if it is a mantra (prayer).The media’s day starts and end with bollywood. The paparazzi are more obsessed with bollywood than a common man. When I queried myself why this fuss is all about the Hindi cinema industry, I found out the media can’t survive without them and vice versa .The media has propagated bollywood films are the only films made in India but in truth it is not so. Apart from the gloss and the glamour, Hindi cinema is nothing. Better films were being made in Indian cinema but they are dismissed as regional cinema. Let me analyze bollywood and the so called regional cinema.
CASE 1: Let me start from the most recent case, The Mumbai terror attack. After the dreadful attack, I was happy that the Indian (Hindi) news channels are wholeheartedly involved in covering the massacre rather than running behind the khans and big B asking them for their “exclusive” comments. But alas!! the situation changed within one week and now the media are interviewing the film stars about the attacks. Ok! I thought, because after all they are doing this to improve their ratings. But since now all the film stars interviewed are from bollywood and no one from the southern film industry…May be because most of the channels are “hinglish” channels and they don’t care about others.
CASE 2: The best actor in India is Aamir khan (!!).Many may not believe this but the media are saying like this only. It is true that he made good films like lagan, Rang de basanti, Taare Zammen par. But is this enough to call him the best…Certainly NOT! After all he has not even won a national award. Compare him with other legends like Kamal Haasan, mohanlal, Sivaji…he stands nowhere. It is hard to believe the legends who I had listed are thespians of Indian cinema, but they are hardly known outside their states.
CASE 3: Next comes the quality of films. As I had mentioned earlier bollywood is all about gloss and glamour. Very few films are watchable in Hindi cinema. But inspite of all this mostly (only) Hindi films are only sent to Oscars. Could you believe it, while films like “paheli” and “eklavya” are nominated for Oscars, “kannatil muthamittal”, a film based on srilanka Tamils has been overlooked. Films like “Anbe Sivam”, one of the best films made in India is not even considered…shit on selection comitee.
My comments might have hurt fellow Indians but this is the truth. Our biased news channels should spend more time on providing news rather than giving useless gossips about Rakhi Sawant(Yuck!).It is better that the media overcomes the bollywood hangover and concentrate on giving equal importance to everyone…

6 Responses

I’m sorry but i fail to see the point you are trying to make…
you start with talking about how it was weird that the media was interviewing movie stars about the attack and i completely agree with you – i think it’s bizarre too.
but then where did the comparison between hindi and regional movies come from.
before you say anything – i am south indian too…
but i dont understand why it is expected that the national media know more about regional films and regional actors – they are REGIONAL.
and Hindi DOES happen to be our national language…thus isn’t it normal that more people know about bollywood and thus the media WILL cover bollywood

but seriously…the point of the writeup confused me…is it about the media obsessing over movie stars or the fact that you are so upset that tamil movies dont get as much attention (and if its the latter i dont understand)

I have clearly stated that the media should give attention to everyone.after all I am from India too and whats disgusting is they dont even respect my film fraternity.I am talking only about english news channels of india and not about hindi channels…

well, 1stly, i do understand with megha that u went off topic in this blog.
word of advise: u should stick to one ‘main’ topic and elaborate on that.
what i perceived from ur blog is that this blog is totally biased.
there’s no BEST in anything, u could be good at something, or be better than some1 or in doing something, but I believe that there’s no best.
and as for aamir not winning even a national award…i believe that awards are even biased sometimes and some deserving ones don’t eeven get a nominations. so awards are useless and waste. I only watch it for the jokes! hahahaha….
and these news channels, not just in india, love to cover about celebs. I do agree that the news channels suck and it’s better to read news on the internet or read newspaper. u can just read whatever u want and skip whatever u want, unlike the crappy news channels where they just keep bragging about one topic like elastic!

have you seen any actor workin hard for 1 year for moustache nd long hairs for the character?
have you seen any actor workin hard for 1 nd a half year 6 hours daily for d pshyicue?
have you seen any intelligent person who is just rewritten the script 8 times 2 made a masterpiece laggan?

i agree that he has not win any national awards except for laggan nd for rakh in 1989….i also truly beleive that only national awards ar d deserving awards of india….
but that doesnt means k he is not in d best list….
laggan is nomianted in the oscars…..the film certaniely proves 1 of the best movies of india….but no nomination in national awards?
similary rdb nominated in bafta……but no nomination in national awards…
nd even i’eym wating for tzp….kammal hassan already rewarded him an award….now lest cee national awards for tzp….
sometimes national awards also been unfair ….. ;]
apart of these 3 movies……
cee sarfarsoh,rangeela,ghulam etc for his performances…..he has once again prove himself he is a verstaile actor….
quality cinema…characters ar importnt…..
nd if you ar talkin about k media is callin him d best actor…
dhen you also have 2 say about media has kalled srk d king of bollywood……did he deserve this title?i agree he is d biggest superstar in india but did this means he is d best actor.?nops…..did he deserve 2 be a king khan?nopx…..never…..
so be kareful for writin this type of stuff……all d best…..